Suckers

[mustangjoe]

Talk about proving my point. Who said I'm not a sports fan? In your world I guess if someone doesn't own a cow he can't like milk?
Assuming most teams were losing money (very, very debatable) it was the owners that did it to themselves by paying outlandish salaries for ordinary players and not just the superstars. Why should the fans bail out someone who doesn't know how to manage their business? If they were losing money, they still had the assets. A losing franchise was still worth millions. If they cut expenses by, say 42%, it would hardly put them back to square one by cutting ticket prices by 22%. If you think ticket prices are just fine, I'm not trying to convince you otherwise, just keep on paying and polish that big "S" on your forehead as you enter the arena.

I think you're schizophrenic

 

[ace85]

Talk about proving my point. Who said I'm not a sports fan? In your world I guess if someone doesn't own a cow he can't like milk?
Assuming most teams were losing money (very, very debatable) it was the owners that did it to themselves by paying outlandish salaries for ordinary players and not just the superstars. Why should the fans bail out someone who doesn't know how to manage their business? If they were losing money, they still had the assets. A losing franchise was still worth millions. If they cut expenses by, say 42%, it would hardly put them back to square one by cutting ticket prices by 22%. If you think ticket prices are just fine, I'm not trying to convince you otherwise, just keep on paying and polish that big "S" on your forehead as you enter the arena.

OK simply the players owe the owners, the owners took all the risk and tried to grow the league with an if you build it they will come attitude. It didn't work and the owners were left holding the bag which in somecases were operational loses in the 50 million dollar range, including big cash calls, becasue tons of capital is tied up in the buildings.


So the players cut 24% out of salary. Putting a lot of teams into the marginal black. Good, but there is lots of extra debt to pay of.

The reality of professional sports is teams don't want fans, they need customers, and with out any real big TV revenue in the NHL, the teams need the gate, and unless dropping prices means more gross gate revenue (from selling more tickets) it ain't going to happen.

I will say there was a real effort to fix some of the problems (rules and flow and parity) but it remains to be seen if bad hockey is being played in JANUARY I say the costs are too high.

 

[mustangjoe]

In a market economy (Canada???), the ticket price would be determined by what the market will bear, NOT by any breakeven point. Hence, if 17,000 people are willing to pay $125 for a Canucks game, this will be the price regardless of whether the team is making or losing money.

ahhh,,

The voice of reason.

Demand still exceeds supply so consider the ticket prices cheap.

I'm blown away by people who think the Canucks don't deserve to make a profit.

These guys who own the teams are all billionaires who got that way for a reason. I tip my hat to all of them. Saying they don't know shit about running business is just ludicrous.

 

[Randy Whorewald]

When your at a hockey game you think about sex?

It has been proven that human males think about sex several times an hour.

 

[FuZzYknUckLeS]

It has been proven that human males think about sex several times an hour.

wow...ya...I see what you mean. I thought about sex when I read that!

 

[Cock Throppled]

"Demand still exceeds supply so consider the ticket prices cheap."

That proves my point about being suckers.


"I'm blown away by people who think the Canucks don't deserve to make a profit."

Again, where and when did anybody even remotely suggest the Canucks, or any team shouldn't make a profit?

ahhh
These guys who own the teams are all billionaires who got that way for a reason. I tip my hat to all of them. Saying they don't know shit about running business is just ludicrous.[/QUOTE

It is a well known fact that owners of sports teams usually have purchased for the wrong reasons and often seem to lose normal business sense where it comes to that aspect of their empires. Remember Charles O. Findlay? Harold Ballard? George Steinbrenner? The bidding wars in the NHL that gave huge salaries to marginal players? Look at what they're paying Roenick and Lindros, who are one step away from career-ending concussions? Would you risk your cash on players like that?

 

[ace85]

Career ending injuries are insured

Lindros is a zero risk Salary, incentive based, he likely has to offset the slaray insurance with private insurance.

Anyway.

The artificially high salaries is because the NHL tried to aggressively grow to become like the other 3 elite professional sports leagues.

Basically expansion gave and extra 9 -18 players the opportunity to become "team stars" and thus forced the salary up on tier 2 players and then the effect trickled down. who were pretending to be tier 1.

The league thought the reward was going to be huge TV contracts like BBall and the NFL. Sadly they were mistaken.

Other issues. NHL teams have farm systems to maintain, and bigger rosters than the NBA and higher operating costs (travel etc) because of number of games and roster sizes. the NFL just charters everything, but that is cost effective because of the ROSTER and only8 games a year. the NBA only has to move 10 players insted o 25.

The NHL has complicated economics.

That being said, with out the big TV contract, and a salary cap tied to revenue, I will bet the cap actually shrinks before it gets bigger.